


No Dress Code: One Night on the Red Carpet

by GuileandGall



Series: No Dress Code [16]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Public Display of Affection, Red Carpet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 07:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13230981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileandGall/pseuds/GuileandGall
Summary: Eli makes Furia’s first time on the red carpet memorable.





	No Dress Code: One Night on the Red Carpet

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by images I saw, but managed not to capture or keep track of … so, sadly, I can’t share them in anyway shape or form. It made the revision process a little difficult.

**-1-**

Furia gathered her silk stockings with gentle care, it wouldn’t do to rip them while putting them on. Her toes slipped in slowly and her hands guided the soft fabric over her knee and up her leg, clipping it to her garters. When she looked up, she found that she’d had an entirely rapt audience. Eli’s hands were still on his only partially tied bow tie, but his eyes were on her.

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready?” she asked, feeling a soft smile curve across her lips.

Eli returned it with a smirk. “But it’s so much more fun watching you, love.”

Her chuckle held a note of nervousness, but she gave him a bit of the show he was looking for. After all, two legs, meant two stockings. “That may be the case, but you’re the one on the schedule. No one cares if I show up to this thing on time, or at all.”

“I do,” he stated, his tone darkening as he crossed the room. His warm hand glided up her leg. “I want you there.”

She fastened the clips on that leg and stood up straight, so she could close the distance between them. “And that’s the only reason I’m going,” she said, tapping him on the end of the nose.

He grabbed her finger before she pulled it away and pressed a kiss to the pad of it. The starched fabric of his tuxedo shirt brushed against her bare belly. He hovered over her, looming temptation she called the tendency. Early on, Eli’s habit of ignoring the concept of personal space had been jarring, annoying. Over the years, it became something she craved; one of those many things she adored about him. His nose brushed against hers as his hands traced over the curve of her hips.

When his thumbs brushed beneath the edge of the lace of her panties, Furia’s hands went right to his wrists, gripping them tightly—an unspoken warning, meant to be stern. “Don’t you even start. Pierce will drive me up the wall for a week if you’re late,” she told him. There was a hint of a toothless reprimand to her cakm, even tone. They both knew she didn’t care a fig about the schedule. She’d more than prefer to happily curl up in bed with him—no heels, no tux, just them—alone, rather than spend the next several hours at that awards fiasco.

His nose nudged hers upwards, making her lips far more accessible. Even so, he just lingered there; mouth brushing side to side against hers until he spoke. “Will you help me with my tie?”

She didn’t have to see the smirk on his lips to know it was there. She found it in the sparkle of his aqua eyes, felt it in firm grip of his hand on her ass. Releasing his wrist, her hands pressed over the broad plane of his chest. She took her time finding the silky, black tie dangling loosely around his neck.

“I love watching you get dressed,” he admitted. “I mean it pales in comparison to the undressing. But still it’s quite enjoyable.” The playfulness in his tone made her giggle, which intensified with the tickling stroke of his hand along her ribs. Though she started to dart away from the sensation, Eli’s strong arms held her fast.

“Eli!” she wailed, curling up against him while pushing away at the same time.

“I’ll stop,” he said. He didn’t renew his attempt again. Clearly, her attempted escape had quelled his attack. Eli chuckled softly and hugged her tighter. His nose continued brushing against the length of hers as she tried to retie the bow tie of his tux, which the tickling undid. “Are you almost done?”

“Why?” Her eyes dropped, but she couldn’t see the tie.

“Because I want to kiss you already. But I don’t want to have to stand here and wait for you to tie it again.”

Furia giggled, tugging at the fabric. She leaned away finally to make sure it was even, then she draped her arms around his neck. “All yours,” she announced with a welcoming smile.

His response was instantaneous. A bruising kiss, consuming and comforting all at once. She still felt it—that heady rush, like the night they met. Her heart raced and her skin prickled, like it was being licked with fire as his lips pressed firmly against hers. The soft demand of his tongue tracing over her lips prompted hers to part. She gasped as the kiss deepened. His tongue delved past her lips; hers teased against it. Her hands pulled at the back of his neck, as if trying to intensify the kiss by sheer brute force.

Sometimes she wondered how it happened, how they happened. By all accounts, they shouldn’t work. Of course, neither of them really put much stock in what other people thought about them individually, and they most certainly didn’t let those opinions into their relationship. But sometimes she did wonder how she found what she had with Eli—how she managed to find someone who loved her without reserve despite all her imperfections, even the dark and bendy pieces, the sharp pointy ones. Once she joked that the reason they got on so well was because they were bent the same kinds of ways, but it was more than that. Always had been.

Once she wondered if it was the distance, the perpetual reunions—that repeated rush of relief and the frenzy of reconnection. But she knew there was more to it. There had to be. Even as his forehead rested against hers, as she stared into that vibrant gaze, she was certain of that fact; though she couldn’t define it by name, except to call it love. Plus, as a child, she’d learned that some questions didn’t have answers, certainly not easy ones.

This. Them. They were among the unsolvable, like those problems in science that still plagued scientists decades and centuries after the questions first arose.

Like gravity, they just were.

Her hand traced his jaw. “I love you, Eli,” she breathed.

“Mmm.” He held her against him; his fingertips tracing the length of her spine. She liked those quiet moments, the ones where everything seemed to fade away except them. “Sol, I love you, too,” he said, his lips still close enough to send anticipatory sparks through her nervous system again. A moment later his embrace tightened for but a second, then loosened as he dropped onto the edge of the bed. “You know, you’re going to make quite the scene dressed like this.”

Furia pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I am _not_ going like this.”

“Aww.”

_Damn those eyes and that kittenish look._

“You could start a trend,” he teased, nipping her bottom lip before she leaned away.

“I think I’d rather not.” She rounded the corner of the bed and unzipped the black bag laying atop the blanket.

Eli draped himself across duvet like a cat stretching in the sunshine. One tattooed finger hooked the edge of the bag so he could finally get a peek at the dress she hadn’t let him see. “Great color.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

“Does it match?” he asked, tipping his purple hair toward the shimmering fabric.

She nodded, laughing gently. “Sí. I think it does.” She threaded her fingers through the soft strands. Petting him always earned her a rumbling purr. “I swear. Sometimes I think you’re part cat,” she told him for the umpteenth time, shaking her head at him.

“Probably, though gin is far more likely to get my attention than a bowl of milk.”

“ _That_ , I already knew.” Furia pulled the dress off the hanger and slithered into it. Eli scrambled off the bed to help her with the zipper. He nuzzled at her neck, taking his sweet time inching the tab upward. “Don’t you dare,” she warned.

He just chuckled against her skin, pressing a firm kiss against her jugular. She was pleased that she wouldn’t have to try and camouflage a vibrant red welt in five minutes or less. While she grabbed her shoes and earrings, he disappeared into the closet for his jacket—black with shiny silver buttons emblazoned with skull and crossbones. Before she was done, he was back; with his hands on her hips, he leaned his chin against her shoulder and looked at the pair of them in the mirror.

“You look beautiful, Sol,” he said, staring at her reflection.

Furia turned and pressed a quick kiss to his chin. “And you always look so sexy in a tux.”

“We make one hell of a handsome couple,” he agreed. Eli straightened, pressing his hand over his tie and down the front of his shirt, while the other arm held her tight against his side.

“We better go. C’mon.” Her hand slipped into the one on her waist and pulled him across the room.

“You know I’m going to be thinking about those stockings all night long.”

“Maybe I should tuck my panties in your pocket,” she teased.

Eli’s free hand gripped her waist. When he pulled her closer, a bassy growl sent shivers down her spine. “Do that and we’ll never make it out of the limo.”

“Oh, I’m slyer than that,” Furia teased, keeping him moving toward the door of their hotel room just as the frantic knocking started. It could only be Pierce, vibrantly announcing himself just in case he might be about to walk in on something he’d rather not see.

“Oh, thank God,” the band manager breathed when she pulled the door open. “I figured I’d have to turn the hose on you two.”

“The night’s still young,” Eli chimed, pressing a kiss to Furia’s bare shoulder. She just smiled at him.

Pierce ignored him. It seemed over the years, Furia wasn’t the only one who’d learned when to take Eli seriously and when his jabs could be ignored. He all but dragged the couple down the hall to the elevators where Johnny, Eli’s bodyguard, waited for them.

 

**-2-**

As the limo neared the red carpet, the screaming roar outside the vehicle got louder. Furia hissed when Eli’s playing with her hand got a little painful as he pressed her fingernail the wrong way.

“Sorry, love.” He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the throbbing infraction.

When the door opened, light as bright as daylight poured into the car, along with a tidal wave of sound. The screeches shocked her most. It started incoherent. But when Eli stepped out of the car, the throng yelled his name with such ferocity that Furia wondered how these people hadn’t already lost their voices. While he waved with his free hand, the other still clasped her hand, firming up as he felt her own tightened in his grasp.

As she stepped out of the car, he took a moment to thread her arm around his. Her only experience with any of this was watching from home. The last time one of these events came up she had been feverish and felt like death on stilts. So, he attended on his own. And she spent the night in her pajamas with a bowl of soup and some tea, viewing from beneath a fluffy mountain of blankets.

Being there in person was intimidating; and Furia couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt intimidated. There were cameras everywhere. People asking for his autograph and for photos. Once someone even shoved their phone into her hand. When she moved to take the picture, Eli pulled the phone out of her hands, and tossed it to Johnny, pulling her back to his side. The gesture made her smile, though at the moment her mind was in such a whirling state that the weight of the gesture didn’t really sink in.

Once they moved to the red carpet, the people yelling Eli’s name changed. The fans could still be heard though. Their screams changed with every new arrival. But on the carpet, it was photographers and reporters whose yelling stood out most prominently. Furia found herself blinded by white hot, bright lights as microphone after microphone was shoved in his face. She blinked profusely as flashes beyond the lights went off.

“Eli, could we get a moment with just you?” some female voice called.

Furia started to loosen her grip on his arm, but Eli grabbed her hand before she could release him. Then he kissed her temple and the pair of them moved past that camera, leaving the reporter with a sour face.

“I think she wanted to interview you,” Furia said, looking back over her shoulder.

“Well, she didn’t have to be rude about it.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“You do enough waiting,” he said and lifted the hand in his to his lips.

Her hand touched his jaw, and when his eyes met hers, she kissed him. Furia never had been much on blatant public displays of affection, especially this kind of public, but in that moment on that fuzzy red carpet she didn’t give a damn who saw how much she loved him. Eli didn’t shy away from it either, pulling her body flush against his. Both were minorly aware of the wolf whistling, perhaps they even registered the fact that it was directed at them, but you couldn’t tell it from the way their attention was devoted to solely to one another.

His gaze lingered on hers once she broke the kiss, and he kept his arm around her waist as they continued their casual stroll along the remaining length of the red carpet toward the ornate doors of the amphitheater.


End file.
